A detailed look at the game of Dungeons & Dragons and all things related

Monday, August 11, 2014

The Best Laid Schemes of DMs and PCs...

Here’s a question that I hear a
lot: As a DM, what do you do when your players don’t do what you expected or
have planned? Answer: I beat them ruthlessly with large metal objects.

Thanks, have a good week!

Well okay, maybe I don’t do that,
but the thought has crossed my mind! Seriously however, every DM has been in
that situation where they think they know exactly how their group is going to
handle a situation and they run off in totally different and unexpected
direction. I’ve heard these events called “side-quests”, or “unexpected
adventures”, or even “chaos content”. I simply call them tangents and they are nothing to be feared.

Tangents are almost always linked
to choices that the players have to make in-game. Choices like killing an NPC or keeping them
around as a prisoner; or running away from the gang of thugs in the alley or
staying to fight; paying the merchant a fair price or stealing what you need; following
the rumor you heard at the tavern or ignoring it as gossip. Each of these
choices have consequences (or they should) and the DM must be ready to handle
any choices the PCs might make. It is a cardinal sin for DMs to assume that
they know exactly what choice the PCs will make and only prepare for one
decision. If you feel that way, why give them the choice in the first place? It
is much better to be open to anything and flexible enough in your planning to
adapt for the inevitable tangent.

But how do you do that, you might
ask? Well it all comes back to good campaign planning. Personally, my goal for
every one of my campaigns is to provide a novel-like storyline for all of my
players to run though. However, that doesn't mean that I plan out every scene,
action, or event down to the last detail. Doing that would just be inviting
disappointment and frustration. Instead, what I generate are plot points I call
guideposts. Depending on how long I
want my campaign to be, I can set as few as three or four and as many as ten or
twelve. These guideposts can really be anything. Some examples are: combats,
dungeons, events (such as murders, suicides, invasions, political change, a
natural disaster, etc.), the PCs discovering a secret, uncovering a hidden
plot, you name it! Once I have my guideposts, all I need do is set them out in
order and (eventually) follow them. To give you a better
understanding of what I mean, what follows is a detailed example.

So, to begin,
I decide that I want to run a campaign that will be played one night a week,
three hours a night, for three months. That’s a total playing time of 36 hours.
For a campaign of this size I would be planning for three guideposts. That’s
three major events I want to see happen in the time I have. Now let’s say that
those three events are going to be: 1) a combat that leads to a NPC(s) being taken hostage, 2)
a dungeon, and 3) the fight with the final boss. Simple enough and I’m sure you
can fill in the details with any number of possibilities.

So now that I have my three
guideposts, as a DM I’m capable of handling almost any situation/decision my
PCs can make without fear of never getting back to my story. But what if the
PCs don’t care about who has been taken hostage and don’t want to give chase? Give them a reason to care! Offer a reward, make the hostage takers old
rivals that the PCs are aching to see behind bars, make the NPC(s) important to their background, raise the stakes! But what if the PCs
decide that the dungeon can wait for a few days while they level up elsewhere?
There’s nothing wrong with that as long as you have the time to spare. And, if you
feel like you are running out of time, maybe it’s time for a strong reminder
like having some of the hostage takers attack them in the night and steal some of
their equipment! But what if they attack the final boss with almost no hit
points or spells? Two answers here. Firstly, if you have some time to burn,
maybe the boss defeats them the first time around without killing them and they
need to run into each other a second time for the “real” fight. Secondly, if
time is short, your answer might be cutting your final boss’ hit points down to
“easy” level, or perhaps tipping your PCs off to a big weakness in his
defenses.

Here’s the main point: there’s
nothing wrong with letting the characters go on a little side adventure, or
wandering off in a previously unexpected direction, or even taking unexpected and foolish risks as long as the DM can
eventually pull them back to the central plot, i.e. the next guidepost. Sometimes,
I even find it a challenge to indulge the PCs in their side-quests until I can
manufacture a way to integrate what seemed to be a tangent into the main story.

For example, let’s say that your
campaign hinges on the PCs tracking down a thief and interrogating him for some
vital information. But, when the time comes, the PCs kill the thief before he
can give the vital information away. You’re stuck right? Wrong! Embrace the
fact that you are about to embark on a tangent and start working on the countless
ways that you can bridge the gap between where you wanted to be and where you
are. Are you in a hurry? Maybe the thief has the information marked down on a
piece of parchment back at his inn room and the PCs have to find a way inside
without being seen. Do you have lots of time to spare? Then why not make this unexpected happening a part of the journey and go on an elaborate tangent to find the “only
other person in the world” who knows the information you need.

A sudden change of circumstances
and patching plot holes on the fly is one of the biggest tests a DM can face.
Some are very good at it and can make any tangent appear seamless. Others get
very uncomfortable and can bend under the pressure. However, I believe that good
planning and easy to follow guideposts can help even the most inexperienced DM
stay on the path of good gaming. Open your mind to the possibilities, accept that things are not
always going to go to plan, and organize the chaos.

3 comments:

I have a question that is kind of based on the post that you put on here and it is how do I introduce a new member to an already established party -and- I have the bonus of having the PC play a Chaotic Evil Half-Orc assassin. I did have a discussion with him about potential actions and potential killing rampages and I was assured that he wasn't going to kill for the sake of killing. To give a background real quick, our DM opened up the door to any other DM's and I jumped on it. This is also my first time. So any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks for your question Mike. First off, if your guy is playing a Chaotic Evil Half-Orc assassin, there is very little chance that nothing is going to go wrong. He's obviously made this choice deliberately so that he feels justified in killing anyone he wants or acting in a "evil" way. Now there's nothing wrong with having a character like this, however I get the feeling from your post that the other characters in the group do not share his love of hatred, greed, and lust for blood. That fundamental shift in philosophy from one player to another is very difficult to keep civil. And this whole business about "not killing for the sake of killing" is a nice way of him saying that he'll try his best to be justified (hey that guy bumped into me!) whenever he goes around cutting throats. My opinion to you Mike is to keep this person on a very tight leash. Since this is your first time DMing, he may feel like he can get away with murder (pun). Put your foot down and anytime he goes off the deep end punish him for it. Have the town militia lock him up, have the local hero put the smackdown on him, have a group of bounty hunters show up looking to collect for something he did years ago, just do whatever it is you must to show him that a degree of order is required. If he doesn't like that, tell him to make a more reasonable character. This player of yours needs to remember something fundamental Mike, the fun in D&D is not being a homicidal maniac and doing whatever you want. The fun in D&D is being a part of 'functioning' group inside of a dynamic story. That's really hard to do when your going out of your way to be evil.

Thank you very much! It's refreshing and interesting that the advice that you gave fell into line with what I was planning on doing. In the upcoming campaign that I had going, after a Kobold invasion the town is under threat from various bandit groups that are vying for power and control of the region and making skirmishes into the town. Based on characters that the previous DM made within the campaign (which is the same guy that is playing the chaotic evil PC), they are going to hit a bandit warlord that is running a dog fighting arena and making huge profits. Unknown to the party, this bandit was also the target of an assassin group and thus now are going to be occasionally running into mercenary NPC's and members of the Assassin's guild. That can play into keeping the chaotic evil character in check.